350 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2-»i s. IX. May 5. '60. 



much doctors and Rabbis may disagree about the 

 Hebrew root : — 



" ' The gast it seyde,' bodi, be stille ! 3 wo hath lered the 

 al this wite 

 That givest me these wordes grille, that list ther 

 bollen as a bite." 



Debate of Body and Soul (13th ceuty.), 

 v. 34. (Camden Society.) 



(Similarly in a fourteenth century version of 

 the same, v. 315.) : — 



" Al my body bolneth 

 For bitter of my galle." 



P. Ploughman' sVis. 2710. 

 "A-bate them benes [t. e. beans] 

 For [i. e. on account of ] bollynge of hir wombes." 



Ibid. 4228-9. 

 Compare with this latter — 



" The mere was bagged with fole 

 And hir-selfe a grete bole." 



Sir Perceval of Galles, v. 718. 



"ghe ben bolnun with pride" [Auth. Vers. " puffed 



up."] _ Wiclif, 1 Cor. v. 2. 

 "lest perauenture bolnyngis hi pride, debatis 



ben among ghou." [Auth. Vers, "swellings."! 



Ibid. 2 Cor. xii. 20. 



" This welle, that I hereof rehearse 

 So holsome was that it would aswage 

 Bollen hertes." 



Chaucer, Compl. of Blk. Knt, v. 101. 

 " boujyd, tumidus. 

 " bolnyn, iumeo, turgeo, tumesco. 



" BOLNYNGE, tlWlOI." 



Prompt. Parvulor. (Camden Society), i. 43. 



And a note — 



" Bollynge yes out se but febely " [i. e. prominent eyes 

 see feebly.] — Horm. 



Richardson and Halliwell give other instances. 

 Coleridge's Glossary refers to " Owl and Night- 

 ingale," 145. ; Nares says the verb " to boll " 

 means " to swell or pod for seed," and under boln 

 quotes — 



" Here one being throng'd bears back all boln and red." 



Shaks., Rape of Lucr. 



Bailey's explanation will suit either render- 

 ing:— 



" Boll, a round stalk or stem ; also the seeds of a 

 poppy." 



But in the case of a plant like flax, where the 

 stem, though round, is anything but " swollen," 

 whilst the seed-capsule is remarkably so for the 

 size of the plant, the term boiled would be far 

 more appropriately used to mean " in pod" than 

 " in stalk." This is farther strengthened by the 

 phrase, " in the ear," applied in the same verse to 

 the other plant, the bailey, that was smitten by 

 the hail at the same time as the flax. 



J. Eastwood. 



The y (ain) in the word ?JDJ (givol) is nearly 

 quiescent, and, according to Gesenius (Heb. Gram. 

 by Conant, p. 12.), its pronunciation by a nasal gn 



or ng is " wholly false." The LXX. have rarely 

 expressed the ain by y (sometimes the German g, 

 oftener the English y), their almost uniform prac- 

 tice being to treat it as a vowel. In the Greek and 

 Coptic alphabets its corresponding place is o. The 

 J? {ain) does not supply the place of ) (vau). My 

 hypothesis, which combines that of Muller and 

 partially that of Michaelis, is that Moses in reading 

 to a scribe the passage (Exodus ix. 31.), used the 



word >"Q,5 (gevool), which he wrote, being fami- 

 liar with the Egyptian word, as 7 U 2J (givol), by 

 mistake of hearing. I think the etymology of 

 Hiller, which your correspondent B. H. C. adopts, 

 preferable to that of Gesenius ; but, although little 

 doubt exists as to the meaning of this word, it 

 must be borne in mind that it occurs once only in 

 Hebrew, and is not met with in other Shemitic 

 languages. (Simon's Lex. Heb. by Eichhorn, in 

 voce.) This subject is mainly interesting as de- 

 termining the period of the Exodus and passover. 

 Dr. Richardson (Travels, ii. 163.), says as to 

 Ejjypt, " the barley and flax are now " [March] 

 "far advanced, the former is in the ear, and the 

 latter is boiled." Dr. Kitto says " flax is ripe in 

 March, when the plants are gathered" . . . "the 

 wheat harvest takes place in May." (Pict. Bib.) 



Flax for the sole purpose of producing yarn 

 should be pulled without allowing the seed to 

 ripen (Brit. Husbandry, ii. 316., L. TJ. K.) Rip- 

 pling is then performed " to free the stalk part 

 from the leaves and seed-pods called bolls" ( Ve- 

 getable Substances, p. 10., L. E. K.) 



T. J. BUCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



DEDICATIONS TO THE DEITY. 



(2 nd S. ix. 180. 266.) 



The earliest yet quoted is of 1619. Two years 

 before appeared the work of a writer whose genius 

 was of just the kind to invent such a practice as 

 appears by the cases which your correspondents 

 bring forward to have been not uncommon in the 

 seventeenth century. This was the noted Robert 

 Fludd, or De Fluctibus, as he aliased himself. 

 The first volume of the Utriusque Cosmi Historia 

 (Oppenheim, 1617), has two dedications, each 

 with a short address, on the recto and verso of a 

 leaf. The first, signed Ego, Homo, is headed thus : 



" Deo Optimo Maximo, Crealori meo incomprehensibili, 

 sit gloria, laus, honor, benedictio, et victoria triumphalis, 

 in secula seculorum. Amen." 



The second, signed R. Fludd, is headed as fol- 

 lows : 



"Serenissimo et Potentissimo Principi Jacobo, Impera- 

 toris Coelorum et Terraium ter maximi, et sui Creatoris 

 incomprehensibilis, in regnis Magna Britannia, Franciae, 

 et Hybernise, ministro et Prsesidi proximo, fideique pro- 

 pugnatori ..." 



A person had need look sharp to his genitives and 



